Tuesday, July 19, 2016

"Lucinda" by Lael Littke

"Lucinda"
By Lael Littke
Thirteen (1991)
Edited by T. Pines
Tagline: 13 Tales of Horror by 13 Masters of Horror

Ten year old Kate secretly watches her older brother Brandon fight with his girlfriend, Lucinda.  She says he cheated on her with some chick named Holly. Lucinda is standing knee deep in a lake wearing her red commencement robe.  She threatens to swim down to her secret place and stay there to punish him. Brandon and Kate walk away from the drama and Lucinda is never seen again.

Turns out this lake is a drowned town.  Six years later Brandon blames himself for Lucinda’s disappearance. He is now Kate’s sole guardian and he drags her back to his nightmare because the lake bed has dried out and he hopes to finds Lucinda’s body.  Instead he believes he’s being haunted and Kate wakes up to puddles on her bedroom floor.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

"The Boys' Toilets" by Robert Westall

The Boys’ Toilets
By Robert Westall
From Ghost Stories (1988)
Chosen by Robert Westall

Tagline: A haunting collection of supernatural tales.

This is a story about Rebeccah who attends an all-girl school.  When the heat breaks down in the school, Rebeccah and her friends must travel across town to the empty Harvest School across town. The Harvest School used to be a boys school and it is old and super creepy.


The girls are prepared to deal with this inconvenience until, one by one, the girls learn the bathroom is haunted. Rebeccah is the daughter of a minister and has some ideas about how to sort out this ghost.  She confronts it in the stall after it has turned itself into a toilet paper mummy!


Sunday, June 5, 2016

"He Walked By Day" by Julius Long


"He Walked By Day" 
by Julius Long
From Spooky Campfire Stories
Edited by Amy Kelley
Tagline: Spooky outdoor tales for all ages.

I’ve returned to Spooky Campfire Stories because this story was very cool.  This type of ghost is not one I have really seen in ghost fiction. 

Karl Rand shows up at a worksite where some men are tarring a road and he asks for work.  He is tall, thin, sickly and scares everyone but he proves to be super strong.  He can work for long hours without a break and he never eats.  The workers call nickname him Shadow and, naturally, they want to know what his deal is. He tells them, very frankly, he’s a ghost.  He needs money for his mom who is very ill.  The workmen aren’t sure if they believe him because he appears real enough but he is so freakin’ creepy!

Sunday, May 22, 2016

"Give Me Back My Guts!" by Richard and Judy Dockrey Young

Give Me Back My Guts!
By Richard and Judy Dockrey Young
From Spooky Campfire Stories (2000)
Edited by Amy Kelley
Tagline: Spooky outdoor tales for all ages.

A swindled widow wants to get revenge on the man who left her with nothing.  When he dies she joins the women paid to mourn him and sneaks into his vault.  She uses a knife to open him up and cut out his guts. The widow brings his guts home and begins to cooks them up into a stew called menudo

As she is cooking she hears the cows on the ranch calling out “Ah-oooo-ah.”  The atmosphere darkens and a storms rolls in.  Typical scary story noises are heard like the fence gate opening and a knocking at the door.  She suspects the noises are more than just the storm and the cattle now sound like they are saying asadura, which is the Spanish word for guts.  Then a voice outside says, “Give me back my asadura!”


Saturday, May 7, 2016

"Honeysuckle Cottage" by P.G. Wodehouse

"Honeysuckle Cottage"
by P.G. Wodehouse
From the collection The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories (1998)
Edited by Peter Haining

Honeysuckle Cottage is about a confirmed bachelor, James Rodman, who lives in his late Aunt’s home. Leila J. Pinckney stated in her will that her nephew could make five thousand pounds if he stays in her home, Honeysuckle Cottage, for six months. She had been concerned that his profession as a gritty mystery author was making him bitter. She was famous for writing saccharine love novels that truly made him ill.  Despite their differences, Rodman liked the idea of living in this country home and writing in peace.

There isn’t a ghost in this story but there is a haunting presence that causes everyone who comes near the cottage to turn lovey dovey sops like a character from one of Leila Pinkney’s novels.  The cottage possesses all who come near it into playing out romance novel scenarios.  Rodman grows upset over the man he’s becoming.  He is powerless to the charms of a young woman whom he fears he may marry if he stays in the house any longer.  Rodman asks others to try and break this enchantment but they each fall into this mushy, sickly sweet fantasy.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

"A Friendly Exorcise" by Talmage Powell


“A Friendly Exorcise”
By Talmage Powell
From the collection “Alfred Hitchcocks’s Behind the Death Ball” (1974)
Tagline: That master hustler of horror chalks up a new high in terror.

This short story begins with an old, sweaty sock caressing a young wife’s face on its own.  In this tale a young couple, Jim and Judy Thornton move to a new house. They are additions to the neighborhood and know nothing about their home when, right away, the haunting begins.  Jim doesn’t believe his wife until his meat bone starts hopping around on his dinner plate and must grab it and smack it down. 

Judy decides this must be the poltergeist of Andy Bickleford who lived with his parents in the house before Jim and Judy moved in.  She feels Andy is harmless because the worst he ever did was toss Jim’s bone around.